Nov 18, 2010

Interview with Legendary Sesame Street Muppeteer Fran Brill

Ryan Dosier - Greetings, Muppet fans! We have an extremely exciting post for you today! This past weekend I was in Chicago, Illinois at the Gene Siskel Film Center for the kick-off weekend of their third annual "Muppet Magic" series of film screenings, this year entitled "More Muppet Magic." I arrived in the city on Saturday for the screening of "Jim Henson & Friends," a collection of a bunch of extremely rare clips that highlighted the Sesame Street career of Jim Henson, Frank Oz, Jerry Nelson, and more. On Sunday I got to see "Sesame Street at 40" (even though it's 41), an awesome retrospective of the cast, both human and Muppet, and some great, rarely seen moments from the show. My friend Danny Beckwith (whom I had the pleasure of meeting and spending some time with at both screenings) will have a few articles discussing these screenings for The Muppet Mindset sometime soon!

But the real highlight of both days was the fact that both screenings were being hosted by legendary Sesame Street Muppeteer Fran Brill, performer of both Zoe and Prairie Dawn, and the first female puppeteer hired by Jim Henson to work on Sesame Street--and Fran also brought Zoe!! This alone would have been hugely exciting, but I have been in touch with Fran since October last year and we've been trying to do an interview together but it has just never panned out... until now! Yes, Fran, being the unbelievably nice lady she is, agreed to do a live interview with me right then and there before Sunday's screening! I could sit here for an hour or more and tell you how incredible Fran is... but instead, you should just listen to it in both parts of our amazing audio interview with the legendary, the amazing, the awesome Fran Brill!!

I'd just like to thank Fran from the bottom of my heart for doing taking the time to do this incredible interview with me and for being so incredibly friendly and wonderful this weekend. Fran, if you read this, tell Zoe I say hello--and I'll have to say hello to who you told me to say hello to a little later than I thought... but it'll still happen soon enough!